To Avenge
by screamingwindchime
Summary: "None have been nearly as torturous as what I'm going to do, Cesare."  Cesare Borgia is Ezio Auditore's prisoner, and Ezio takes revenge... his way.
1. Cuffed to the Hand

A/N: The beginnings of a multi-chapter piece I am (as of late) now obligated to write. This is just the beginning, and just so you know, my first fic for AC. I'll have the next bit up soon. Hopefully. Oh and this is... well you'll figure it out.

Concrit? Advice? I'll take it. (Like a boss!) Come on, if you read it (its really short!) please, please, **_please_** leave a review.

D/C: I never have and never will own Ubisoft or AC, and as far as I'm concerned, the Borgia belonged to themselves.

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"_Auditore_."

There was a click of a lock, then a creaky swing, and then the thud of a heavy iron grate hitting the old, gray stonewalls that enclosed the tiny cell. The dim red light of a torch outside illuminated two figures, outlining their silhouettes and casting dark, eerie shadows along the floor and walls.

Had anyone else been there, they'd have wondered why on earth a man was bound at the wrists and ankles by chains, the skin there bleeding and red and raw from irritation; why the man had a leather choke-collar and a large cut and bruise on his face, or why he had been stripped to only his bloodied undershirt and torn breeches. Or why he was there _at all_ in the first place.

But no one else _was_ there. And Ezio Auditore knew _exactly_ what he was doing.

He was going to make Cesare Borgia _pay._

"Tsk, tsk," said Ezio Auditore, striding confidently towards the chained figure of Cesare Borgia. Even in the darkness, his sinister smirk gleamed. "Ah, you do not miss me, I assume?"

Cesare snarled. "What do you want from me, Ezio Auditore?" he spat, lacing each word with as much venom as he could muster. He stood up on shaky legs; the bindings at his ankles were especially painful, but he moved slowly towards the other. "Power? Land? Arms? What is it Ezio Auditore, that you could possibly want from me, that would _require_ you to physically take me and chain me and leave me here this way? _What is it, Auditore?_" the General had moved to a distance a foot away from the Assassin, the bindings at his wrists pulling his arms and shoulders back. Defenses down. Vulnerable. But Cesare could care less at this moment, as he stared down the man before him. He had on a look of absolute hate and rage; his insides roiled at the sight of the cocky Assassin. Especially now, since he had something to be cocky about.

The assassin shook his head. "I want none of those things," he said, an air of confidence simply radiating off of him, that absolutely asphyxiated the Templar.

"Then what is it that you want from me!" shouted an increasingly enraged Cesare.

"What I want is simple," said the assassin smoothly. He unveiled his stoically emotionless face as he lowered his hood as he said, "I want revenge."

"Ha, well then, do so! You already have me set up, don't you?" said Cesare, moving back and attempting to lift and spread his arms as a gesture of welcome. "Kill me now, while you have the chance!"

The assassin shook his head. "I do not want your life," said Ezio. Cesare faltered. "Death would be too easy… too much of a simple escape for you."

"Then release me. You've kept me here a week, subjected me to every torture possible…" said Cesare, faltering as he remembered the hunger of the first few days, when he'd been starved; he remembered beatings he'd taken, and hot blood pulsed at the sites of the open wounds on his back from where daggers had sliced through skin—they weren't deep, but they were damn well enough to cause pain. "You have had your revenge."

Ezio shook his head again. "I've subjected you to _almost_ every kind of torture," he corrected, moving forward lightly, raising his wrists. He flicked upward and two gleaming, razor sharp silver blades protruded from his hands. "None have been nearly as torturous as what I'm going to do, _Cesare_," said Ezio, looking straight into Cesare's eyes as he filled the last word with as much venom as he could.

Before, he might have thought himself crazy just to think that Cesare would ever shrink back in fear, but when the weakened Cesare's hands trembled and shoulders drooped… he knew.

Cesare was afraid.

"Do it now, Auditore," he growled low, softly, his voice rasping at the sudden dryness that had overcome his throat.

"Very well, then," he said, as he inched forward, thrusting his arms forward.

Cesare flinched. His eyes pinched shut and for a split second he wondered if he had died instantly, painlessly, because he felt nothing. He saw nothing.

Then he heard the metallic clang of blade's edge on stone.

His eyes opened by their own volition, as wide as saucers as he realized that the assassin had stayed true to his word, and his life _would _be spared. His sight drifted to the vambraces and blades he had thrown to opposite corners of the cell—far from either of them, damn him—and the body of the man before him.

He had no weapons or armour, save for the blades and vambraces. And they wouldn't be of much use now. Confusion was written all over Cesare's face, more definitely expressed amongst feelings of anger and fatigue and hunger and fear.

Ezio craned his neck, steeled his features, and suppressed the urge to taunt. "Do you know what I am going to do to you, _Cesare?_"

The formerly undaunted General averted his eyes, and kept the fact that his knees and legs and entire body had grown weak in the past few moments, shaking his head. _I don't want to know,_ he appeared to be saying. _I don't want to know._

Ezio roughly grabbed Cesare by the jaw to make Cesare face him, pushing him down with his free hand. _Hard._ To his knees.

"I am going to make you beg."

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A/N: REVIEW!


	2. For Mercy

**AN** So yeah I'm alive, and I just... dunno what happened. I'm stuck between baking and doing shit and studying for entrance exams. I hope you all like it! heheheh. Unbeta'd and self edited. I can't remember if I got back to you all who reviewed, favourited, anything-ed this story, but I'd just like to say thank you and I love you all. =D

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**TO AVENGE**

**Chapter II**

_For Mercy_

Cesare was indignant.

"You kept me here…" he said, laughing weakly. "…to make me, Cesare Borgia, _beg_?"

Ezio nodded, a criminal gleam in his eye. Cesare was too preoccupied with his latest train of thought.

"Fool," spat Cesare. "No one… _no one_… ever makes me beg. _I _make _others _beg."

"You think I can't do the same to you, Cesare?" said Ezio, fisting Cesare's shirt in his hand, pulling him close. "You think me a fool?" He looked him straight in the eye, neither refusing to look away or even blink.

"_Yes,_ just in case you couldn't comprehend." Cesare almost laughed; he was a ruthless conqueror. He knew political and military strategies like the back of his hand. He took _what _he wanted, _when _he wanted, _as _he wanted. He exercised his power at will. He never surrendered.

"Well, _messere_," said Ezio with a sardonic grin. His other hand, ungloved, loosed its grip on the fisted cloth, slowly trailing up to Cesare's vulnerable forearm. "Let's not forget that you _are_ my prisoner. And you have been for a week," Ezio tightened the grip his hand around the exposed forearm. He moved closer to Cesare's ear, speaking low. A bare whisper, just the slightest hint of heat: "And nobody's found you."

Suddenly Cesare was in searing pain; the bastard had jerked his arm forward, _hard_, sending thousands of burning daggers of pain from his wrists to up his shoulders. He could not help but glance murderously at the Auditore as he tried to take back that loud, ugly, echoing cry of pain that had come out of his throat when he was thrashed against his bindings. And the Auditore could not help but look back at him, devilishly grinning.

"I am quite sure that I _can_ make you beg," he said, returning his angry stare. "I've solicited a sound from your mouth. It was _beautiful_. Now, let us turn those sounds into words…" he trailed off, backing up slightly, to observe Cesare's crumpled form—well, as crumpled as he could be. He had crouched to the side, cradling his abused hand to his chest.

"Never," said Cesare through his teeth.

"Ah, well, then," he said, slowly stepping backwards. He paused, raising his hand to his chin in thought. "I suppose you won't beg for your sister?" At this the Spaniard straightened up. Fresh, hot anger flared in his eyes, and his hands turned to white-knucked fists at his sides.

"What have you done to Lucrezia?" he demanded. He rose forward, rattling his bindings, straining his ankles and wrists. "_What did you do to her?_"

Ezio let out a small chuckle, then quickly replaced his expression with disgust. "Humour me first. Tell me, is it true that you love her?"

Cesare didn't say anything.

"Cesare, you're being no fun."

He still didn't say anything.

Ezio grunted. "I'll take your silence as a yes, then. And what I'd seen from that window, when you held Caterina in the Castello, I've got plenty to go on. And as such I will assume from here forth. As you apparently do not object at all to what I said, I do believe that it is fact as well that you-well, you _compromised _her-"

"Don't dare speak-"

"Were you saying something?"

"You fucking bastard-"

"What was that? Your sister fucks bastards?"

"I shall have your tongue cut out-"

"You can't do that now, Cesare, after all, I've got proof that the child she's carrying is _yours_ and-"

"_You will speak no ill of my _sister_!" _growled Cesare through grit teeth. He held Ezio's stare for a moment before Ezio sighed, seemingly in defeat. Cesare's eyes were hazy with dirt and anger, and his vision flared red as Ezio dared to _laugh_ in his face. "You piece of sh-"

"You don't get it."

"Don't get _what_, you stupid assassin?"

"I can do _anything I want_,_" _said the Assassin, raising a hand to Cesare's shoulder. Fingers hovered over a whip wound that was raw and weeping and uglier than all his other wounds. It was beginning to close up-_beginning_ to. "So I'm going to _do whatever I want." _And the Assassin's fingers pressed down hard on either side of the wound, spreading to stretch it further. A spurt of blood on Ezio's fingers and the sounds of the Spaniard's angry curses was all the confirmation he needed; this hurt and was not going to feel any better anytime soon. He smiled, taking pleasure in the other man's stunted gasps.

"You are _mad_, Ezio Auditore. I shall have you hung from the Castello, for all of Roma to see. I'm going to get out of this filthy circle of _hell_ and I'm going to _kill you myself._" The words tumbled from Cesare's lips like swords unto stone. They could cut to the bone but they couldn't, really. Ezio was not falling for any of it.

The Assassin took hold of his sleeve, rolling it up to the elbow. Cesare could see something tied to his forearm, crossed over with twine, careful, deliberate knots at each intersection.

He knew the handiwork. It was Leonardo's.

"You must think I am going to be so easy to break," said Ezio as he removed the package from his arm, taking one end of a loose bit of twine and pulling it free. The package fell into his free hand, and Ezio removed the dried blood-stained canvas cloth that protected it. Each corner that fell away revealed a shiny silver _thing_ that was minutely thin and filled with red liquid-at least he assumed it was liquid-and his knees felt weak. He'd seen men poisoned before. He was going to become one of them now, he was definitely sure.

In a swift, swooping movement, the Assassin was standing before him again, poison deliverer in his hand. He reaches back with his free hand to pull his grimy cowl back over his face. He has the ghost of a frown, or at least the shadow of one crossing his scarred lips; he adjusts the poison in his hand.

Cesare can feel Ezio's sour breath on his face, can feel it turning rancid as it travels through his lungs. He can feel the burn of Ezio in him; the tables have been turned against him. He can feel the powerlessness of not being able to do anything about this. He can't stop the Assassin as he approaches, the needle of the poison deliverer hovering above the still-bleeding, likely infected wound on his shoulder. When it broke through a layer of muscle he screamed so loud his voice reverberated throughout the dungeons, bounding off the walls and returning to his ears. His heart leapt to his throat as the Assassin withdrew the needle.

"You must think there's only one kind of torture," was the last thing Cesare heard. Being laid down on the floor, crumpled and dirty was the last thing he felt. He didn't know what was happening and he was drifting, drifting farther and farther away, past the blackness and the whiteness, mind floating to that once-home in Valencia…


End file.
